Did you ever have a dream?
When you ask a young child what they want to be when they
grow up, their response is usually something that they dream of doing. It is
very sweet to listen to children tell you they want to be an actor, a doctor, a
veterinarian, a fireman, or a number of other things. Sometimes in the process
of growing up, we lose our dream. My husband and I spend a lot of time with middle
school and high school students and their dreams are not as vivid as a younger
child. Most still have an idea of what they want to do but then the thoughts of
“how am I going to get there?” start to creep in. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just keep the
same enthusiasm throughout our lives as we had when we were young? Feeling like
we can do anything we want to do and there is nothing that will stop us. Many times,
we settle because the road of our dreams would cost too much or take too much
time.
The reason I started thinking about all this is because I
was reading the story of Abram and how his journey with God started. In Genesis
11:31 it describes Abram’s father, Terah, packing up his family and their belongings
with the intent to go to Canaan. We don’t know if God spoke to Terah like He
did Abram and ask him to go because the bible doesn’t say but for some reason
Terah had a dream of moving his family to Canaan. At the end of this verse it states,
“and they went as far as Haran, and settled there”. These few words tell us
that this man stopped short of fulfilling his dream. He went so far and then he
settled. Who knows, maybe it was a hard journey, or someone got sick or they
just ran out of steam. The fact is, instead of keeping his eyes focused on the
dream, Terah settled in a place that may have felt comfortable at the time. He
let the fear of the unknown take over his dream.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to settle. I want
to go full speed ahead and trust that God has my path. Now can I say that I do
that all the time, absolutely not. Just think about how freeing it could be to
know that you did not stop half way there, because that is about where Terah
stopped. God has a great plan for our lives and it is already mapped out, all
we have to do is trust Him and walk in it. (Jeremiah 29:11)
When you read the very next verse (Genesis 11:32) it says, “The
days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran”. So, I
guess we can completely count out the fact that he may not have had time to
accomplish his dream, but I think that fear may have eaten up all his time. It
is sad that Terah died half way to his dream. This makes me want to push harder
toward mine and not let fear talk me out of it, how about you?
